Sustainable Cities: Is there a future? Is it green?

CIRIA is hosting an evening debate to discuss current issues of environmental sustainability in a new Urban Era. This event will bring together highly regarded senior professionals from the engineering and built environment sector to discuss 21st Century challenges in balancing economic growth, environmental protection and social inclusion for future cities and infrastructure systems.

On 22 June, CIRIA’s second annual debate will once again revisit cities as a topic, asking the question: is the future green? The upward trend towards urbanisation shows no sign of abating; with some estimates suggesting up to 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas by 2050. Our understanding of the urban, whether in theory or in practice, has reached a turning point, with cities across the world facing new, complex and challenging conditions that require resilience and adaptation to the impacts of environmental and social change. The debate on cities can no longer focus on whether urbanisation will be an issue, instead we must focus on how we manage large urban hubs in the future and support opportunities for sustainable development. Facing an array of complex challenges, we once again ask what our future cities might look like.

The UK boasts some of the world’s leading engineers and researchers working on innovative solutions and approaches to managing urban regions and developing more inclusive and sustainable urban environments and communities. This debate will bring together some of the leading figures in engineering to present their ideas and experiences for addressing the complex challenges of an urban future.